When the 33rd Congress met, on the 6th day of December, 1853, the tariff issue was practically in abeyance. The net ordinary receipts of the government for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1853, were $61,587,031.68. The net ordinary expenditures of the government for the same year were $47,743,989.09, leaving a surplus of revenue over expenditures of $13,843,042.59, of which, $6,833,072.65 was applied to the payment of the public debt, leaving in the treasury, unexpended, about $7,000,000.00. The financial and political condition of the United States was never more prosperous than when this Congress met. The disturbance of this condition can be attributed only to the passage of the act to organize the territories of Nebraska and Kansas approved by President Franklin Pierce, May 30, 1854. The 32nd section of that act contained this provision:—
"That the constitution and all laws of the United States which are locally inapplicable, shall have the same force and effect within the said Territory of Kansas as elsewhere within the United States, except the eighth section of the act preparatory to the admission of Missouri into the Union, approved March sixth, eighteen hundred and twenty, which, being inconsistent with the principle of non- intervention by Congress with slavery in the states and territories, as recognized by the legislation of eighteen hundred and fifty, commonly called the compromise measures, is hereby declared inoperative and void; it being the true intent and meaning of this act not to legislate slavery into any territory or state, nor to exclude it therefrom, but to leave the people thereof perfectly free to form and regulate their domestic institutions in their own way, subject only to the constitution of the United States: Provided, That nothing herein contained shall be construed to revive or put in force any law or regulation which may have existed prior to the act of March sixth, eighteen hundred and twenty, either protecting, establishing, prohibiting or abolishing slavery."
This act contained a similar clause relating to Nebraska.
To understand the effect of this provision it is necessary to review the status of slavery in the United States under the constitution and existing laws.
The articles of Confederation make no mention of slavery or slaves. During and after the Revolution the general feeling was that slavery would be gradually abolished by the several states. In the Ordinance of 1787 for the government of the territories of the United States, northwest of the Ohio River, it was expressly provided that:
"There shall be no slavery nor involuntary servitude in the said territory, otherwise than in the punishment of crimes, whereof the parties shall have been duly convicted; provided, always, that any person escaping into the same, from whom labor or service is lawfully claimed in any of the original states, such fugitive may be lawfully reclaimed, and conveyed to the person claiming his or her labor or service as aforesaid."
This provision applied to all the territory of the United States that was subject to the jurisdiction of the Continental Congress.
The constitution of the United States did not mention either slaves or slavery. Its two provisions relating to the subject were the following:
"The migration or importation of such persons as any of the states now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the year one thousand, eight hundred and eight, but a tax or duty may be imposed on such importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each person. . . .
"No person held to service or labor in one state, under the laws thereof, escaping into another shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due."